Phytomonitoring: Interaction between metal-soil-water-plants. Experimental test on Arsenic and Lactuca sativa

Lactuca sativa was recommend to OECD (1984) to test the toxicity of soils, and it is a species in which most of the biomass produced is represented by edible leaves). The human exposure to arsenic is undoubtedly represented by the ingestion toxic element through water and food. Soil polluted by metals and metalloids and/or the use of polluted water for irrigation can determine the presence of these substances in plant tissues that can be easily transferred to humans both in a long food chain (plant-animal-man) or in a short one (plant-man). In this study the concentrations of arsenic absorbed by Lactuca sativa has been assessed. Lactuca sativa grown in laboratory. The authors built up experimental test with different pre-treatments, different soils texture and irrigation with unpolluted and polluted water The analysis has been focused to determine, through a standard digestion procedure, the As accumulation in leaves after 4, 8 and 12 and weeks of exposure. Translocation Factor (TF) and Bioaccumulation Factor (BCF) has been calculated for lettuce grown under each experimental test. Tolerance threshold has been calculated. The metal concentration in the lettuce were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA). Innovative aspect of the present work is that obtained data has been correlated each other in order to verify the influence and the interaction between all experimental parameters.